The curious off-black smoky color to the font and section headings with an odd bluish hue alerted the instructor that something was seriously amiss with the student's writing assignment. Upon further investigation, the educator was dismayed to find that the entire student report had been cut and pasted from an article on the Internet. A simple web search revealed the exact source, furnishing the incriminating evidence that the paper had been plagiarized in its entirety. Nurses Announcements Archive Article
In this digital age, plagiarism has never been so easy - and so prevalent. Millennial students often do not realize that lifting words from the internet is cheating. They may feel entitled to take information from web-based sources without any constraint or attribution, since they have grown up in the digital age where copious amounts of information have always been so freely available.
Plagiarism is defined as the "unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work" ("plagiarism," n.d.). Plagiarism is a form of cheating, dishonesty, and theft - literary theft. The writer has assumed ownership of the original thoughts, language, and material of another, without properly documenting the source.
Accidental plagiarism, on the other hand, is unintentional and often involves sloppy research practices with improper or deficient reference citations. Students need to be aware that ignorance of proper citation methods does not excuse the act of plagiarism.
Most, if not all, learning institutions have an academic dishonesty policy that defines and addresses plagiarism and spells out its consequences. The consequences of plagiarism can be grave, including academic warnings, expulsion, and a marred scholastic record that can negatively affect one's career opportunities throughout life.
Best practices in academic writing require extensive research, analysis, and synthesis of others' ideas, with careful and meticulous citation of sources. The writer builds upon others' works, while offering a significant original revision, improvement, or scholarly contribution.
Clues for educators to plagiarism in written assignments include odd shades, fonts, and formatting of text, errant footnotes, and noticeable variations in writing styles within the same paper. Pasting a few suspect sentences into a mega-search engine such as dogpile.com will often yield instantaneous results. Educators can also use sophisticated software such as turnitin and dupli checker.
References
Defining and avoiding plagiarism: the wpa statement on best practices
Plagiarism. (n.d.). dictionary.com unabridged. Retrieved from dictionary.com website: Plagiarism | Define Plagiarism at Dictionary.com